World Bank’s private sector branch, International Finance Corporation, is now in the process of revising the information disclosure policy and safeguard policies which are environmental social standards. IFC has been facing conflict with NGOs on the revision process.

IFC’s standards have great influence on those of corporate and financial institutions. “Equator Principles”, which provide social and environmental standards for private banks, were established based on IFC standards. The principles are now signed by 27 major private banks in the world including Mizuho Corporate Bank. Besides, Export Credit Agencies (ECA) refer to the IFC standards in their policies. It would be possible that other agencies follow IFC if its standards are weakened.

120 NGOs (now180 NGOs) sent a petition letter to the President of World Bank and the Executive Vice President of IFC on September 16th to reconsider the revision process, however IFC substantially didn’t accept the NGOs requests. Therefore, most of NGOs boycotted to participate the consultation in Rio de Janeiro and the stakeholder meeting in Washington DC. Today, on October 25th, three advocacy groups have announced not to participate in the stakeholder meeting in Tokyo, which IFC has planned to hold, because of the following reasons.

◆Flaws in Revision Process
- IFC is driving for the board approval of new policies in February. As a result, IFC decided to set up the public comment period only for 30 days, even though all current 10 safeguards policies will be unified. It is one of the serious flaws in the process to ensure the participation of civil societies.
- Free opened participation of civil societies to the consultations is not allowed because of invitation-based consultations.
- Participants to the consultation are not able to participate and express the opinions for both policies because several subcommittees are held at the same time.
- The location of the first consultation was suddenly changed to Rio de Janeiro only 25 days before the planned consultation date. As a result, Portuguese version of the draft papers for the consultation was published only 12 days before the consultation. IFC refused to postpone the date, though NGO requested.

◆Flaws in the Consultation Draft papers
- Certain important criteria in present 10 safeguard policies are omitted without any explanations in the Consultation Draft of Performance Standards.
- The requirements to the project sponsors as well as the responsibility and review procedure of IFC are too vague. It’s a big question whether such vague standards will be implemented appropriately.
- The current “presumption in favor of disclosure” principle is not referred in the Draft of information disclosure.
- The draft failed to mention the name of the basic documents which IFC establish and hold.

◆Contacts:
Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES)
　 Yuki Tababe TEL:(03)3447-9585 email: tanabe@jacses.org
Friends of the Earth Japan (FoE Japan)
Naomi Kanazaki TEL:(03)3951-1081 email:kankan@foejapan.org